For many years, the industry standard for hand-held wire stripping tools has been the Custom Stripmaster Wire Stripper manufactured and sold by Ideal Corporation. This tool comprises a pair of opposed jaws arranged for clamping and holding an insulated wire during stripping. A pair of cutting blades are positioned adjacent to the clamping jaws and operate substantially in unison with the clamping jaws to cut through insulation on a wire being held in the clamping jaws and to strip the severed insulation by moving in a direction away from the clamping jaws. The tool is operated by a pair of handles extending in a plier-like fashion from the body of the tool. As the handles are squeezed, the clamp jaws and the cutting blades first move into their operative positions to clamp the wire and to sever the insulation while continued squeezing of the jaws thereafter causes the cutting blades to move away from the clamping jaws pulling the severed insulation from the wire. When the handles are released, the cutting blades open prior to the blades moving back towards the clamping jaws allowing the blades to move back into their normal rest position without hitting against the ends of the wire being held in the clamp jaws.
While the manually operated wire stripping tool described above continues to be an industry standard, it is not believed to be the most efficient method for wire stripping since it does require manual operation by the user in order to strip a wire. In a production application, the continued opening and closing of the plier-type device is not only tiring but could lead to medical problems such as carpal-tunnel syndrome. Thus, it is desirable to provide a wire stripping tool which incorporates the advantages of the clamping and cutting action of the conventional wire stripping tool while avoiding the difficulties inherent in manual operation of a plier-type device.